


when i come home (if i come home)

by telemain



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-01-07 06:15:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18404804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telemain/pseuds/telemain
Summary: Little bits, here and there, of what happened when the 4077th crew got home. I intend to eventually at least touch on everyone.





	1. PIERCE, CAPT DR BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

When Hawkeye comes home, it’s to Crabapple Cove on the Maine coast, it’s to his father’s house, it’s to the bedroom he last slept in regularly when he was 19, and it’s in that bedroom that he collapses, facedown. Later, his dad leaves dinner on the bedside table, and tries not to count the gray hairs.

It takes him less time to adjust than he’d thought it might. Eating real food, sleeping in a real bed, interacting with real civilians, it all feels strangely okay. He starts to wonder if he’s actually okay, and debates trying to get in touch with Sidney, but as weeks go by and he tests himself like one might test a repaired tooth for pain, he realizes he actually is okay.

He starts seeing patients again. Actual sick people, not barely-adult men insulted by tools of war. Sore throats and broken bones and young children with pinkeye and old men with hearing trouble. It’s busy and it’s wonderful and he falls into it like he fell into that bed. 

He picks up a pen about once a day to write to BJ, but can’t think of what to say. Finally, he simply takes a picture of himself and his dad, walking along the shore right after dawn, and writes on the back “I MADE IT HOME OKAY. BF & Daniel Pierce, Crabapple Cove, ME. Sept 1953.” 

The reply comes back a couple weeks later. It’s a picture of BJ and a woman that must be Peg and a girl that must be Erin, standing on a hilltop overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge; the city of San Francisco spreads out to one side behind them, the Pacific to the other. “SO DID I. BJ, Peg, and Erin Hunnicutt. Sausalito, CA. October 1953.”


	2. WINCHESTER, MAJ DR CHARLES EMERSON (III)

Charles Emerson Winchester (the Third) is not outwardly the sentimental type. His office at Boston General has only one personal picture (himself, his parents, and his sister), and few other decorations. He is there to work and the office reflects that. Certainly, there is the record player in the corner, but Mozart helps him concentrate. The decanter and glasses, the chess set, the Renoir print, the globe on the desk, all carefully selected for a professional, intelligent, dignified impression. 

So what if there are tiny marks on the globe, over places like Ottumwa and Hannibal. Means nothing. Pay no attention to that small closed box on a bottom shelf. All it has is a picture of the 4077th staff (before O'Reilly went home and Hunnicutt grew that Godawful mustache), a list of addresses, Charles’s Major’s oak leaves, and the hat he was wearing the night a North Korean bullet came within half an inch of introducing itself to his brain.

He has put the past away so neatly, in fact, that when a thoracic surgeon named John McIntyre (whom Dr Winchester immediately mentally tags “Dr McIntyre”) applies, interviews, and is hired, they work together for six months before either of them mentions Korea. 

Winchester says he was at Tokyo General, which is technically not a lie. McIntyre shakes his head, perhaps thinking of a goodbye never said, and says he doesn’t want to talk about the war at all.


	3. POTTER, COL DR SHERMAN T

At some point when he wasn’t paying attention, Colonel, no not Colonel any more, just Doctor, Doctor Sherman T Potter had become an old man. Certainly he was no spring chicken anymore, oh no, that was fair, and maybe not middle aged anymore, when your age started with six you had to admit it wasn’t really middle anymore. But he felt old. He creaked. He ached. He’d had to stop eating some things, force himself to eat some others.    
  
It was normal to slow down, he kept telling himself, he’d worked hard for nearly fifty years, he’d earned it. He didn’t push himself daily like he had in Korea, certainly there were no choppers at dawn and choppers at dusk and surgery around the clock inbetween. He had a cold sick feeling he tried to keep as far out of his mind as possible that he wasn’t capable of that anymore, that the reserves he’d reach down for at such moments was gone.  
  
“You’re staring into space. What’re you thinking about, Sherm?”  
  
“Just glad the war didn’t last any longer. It already felt like I was there for ten years.”  
  
_You’re a doctor_ , a nasty voice in the back of his head whispers. _You know it’s not normal to go downhill this fast. Maybe if you were 85, but you’re not even 65 yet. Something is wrong._  
  
He pushes the thought aside, and goes to sit in the backyard, under the shade of the big tree, with a glass of lemonade and a good book. Not a Zane Grey, he’d read them so much in Korea he practically had them memorized.  
  
He and Mildred, by virtue of his retirement and their owning their home (and he lost himself for a few minutes in the memories of the hijinks that had ensued around that news arriving to the 4077th), had been elected, as the least likely to move around, keepers of the address lists. Any reunions, or information that one or another person was travelling for vacation or a conference or whatnot, the information would pass through Hannibal and on to whomever.  
  
He wondered when that first - well, technically second, and he spent another few minutes lost in memories - reunion would be, and who would organize it. Maybe he’d write BJ in the next day or two and suggest that five years wouldn’t be too soon.  
  
“I'm sure glad we went through it together.” he mutters, to the past.  
  



	4. KLINGER, SGT MAXWELL Q

“Good God, Mr Klinger, did the Army teach you to fight like that?” 

“No, sir, Mr Robinson. Been fighting since I was a kid, sir.” Which was true. He’d learned to brawl on the streets of Toledo long before Unarmed Combat in Basic Training. He’d even taught Sgt Bishop a thing or two. 

Klinger’s boss looked grim. “I think someone needs to teach you how _not _to fight.”__

____

____

“Sir, if you’d heard what that punk said about my wife-” 

“Yeah, I know. Got it from Pete while the cops were talking to you. He called her a racial slur, a prostitute, and that the only reason you married her was that there was a kid on the way.”

Klinger was past sugar-coating it. “If you mean by that, he called her a ‘gook whore’ that I ‘knocked up’, yes, sir.” He knew Robinson was married. “I couldn’t let that go. What kind of man would I be if I let someone say that about my wife and didn’t do anything?” 

Robinson opened his mouth, thought for a second, closed it again. “I fully understand, Klinger. Max. I don’t blame you at all. And that’s why I’m really sorry that I have to let you go.” 

“You’re firing me, sir??” 

“Yeah. I have to. I can’t have my people brawling on the production floor, or saying crap like that about each others’ families, either. In a way I’m doing you a favor.” Robinson watched the younger man’s hands clench. “If I just let you walk back out there and get back to work… look, Ferguson’s a pretty popular guy around here, and you just put him in the hospital. One or more of the guys out there might take it on themselves to get a little payback. I cut you loose, I cut him loose, I walk out there, I tell them it’s over, you both misbehaved, you’re both gone, end of it.” 

Klinger nodded, silently, staring at the floor. “I guess if that’s it I’ll go clean out my locker.” 

“Hey, when you apply for your next job;” Robinson found a business card among the piles on his desk and gave it to Klinger. “You have em call me. I’ll tell em you were one of the best workers I ever had and I’m some sorry I had to lay you off when things slowed down.” 

Klinger swallowed his pride, took the card, and shook the proffered hand. “Thanks, sir. I appreciate that.” 

After a few more incidents like that, one sweltering night, Klinger was at his wits’ end. Soon-Lee even suggested they might go back to Korea; at the end of the war, Potter had pulled some strings to get Klinger in with the US Army forces that were staying behind, and she was sure he could go back to that. 

The combination of the heat and thinking about Colonel Potter got Klinger to remember another hot night, halfway around the world, and he went in his duffel and dug out the electronics repair manual that he’d been consulting when he disassembled the camp’s PA systems. He read it for the rest of the night, with Soon-Lee looking over his shoulder. 

A month or so later, after Klinger called in every favor and resource he had, a storefront opened in downtown Toledo; actually two, side by side. On the left side, MAX’S FIX-IT proclaimed electronics repair services to all, meanwhile on the right SOON-LEE’S advertised laundry, alterations, and tailoring. And while Max did indeed stand behind the counter of the electronics shop, smiling his broad grin and exuding confidence, and next door Soon-Lee took measurements and made color suggestions, in the shared back room it was Max wielding scissors and thread, while Soon-Lee worked with soldering iron and multimeter. 

It's not overnight, but they're successful; they develop a reputation for good work and honesty, and such things are important. Klinger is so happy, he doesn't even mind when he hears thirdhand that Mike Ferguson didn't get fired after all. Before too long, however, both stores close for a week when little Amy Young-Mi Klinger is born.


	5. BLAKE, DR HENRY BRAYMORE

**HENRY BLAKE?**

Henry groaned. He felt completely disconnected from his body, like he had the world's worst hangover. The voice ringing in his ears was deep, loud, and British. "Ugh, whoever you are, can you quiet it down a little?" The thought "I'm a civilian now" kicked in and he added, belatedly, "Please?" 

**AS A MATTER OF FACT, I CANNOT. I AM ... SORRY.**

That got Henry to open his eyes, metaphorically speaking, and survey his conversational partner. Black robe. Scythe. Hourglass. Skull, with two faint but bright points of blue light in the eyesockets, like remote stars. 

"Oh, no no no no. Can't we talk about this?" He couldn't help but notice that the sand in the hourglass was all in the bottom half. 

**THERE IS NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT.**

"Yes there is! You're here to k- to ki-" 

**I AM NOT THE AUTHOR OF YOUR CURRENT STATE. I AM MERELY... YOUR ESCORT.**

"... to where?" 

**TO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT**. And with a wave of his scythe, Death opened the doors to the endless black desert under the sky full of stars. 

Henry took a step through, then paused, one foot still in life. "What ... does happen next?" 

**I DO NOT KNOW.**

"And I was going to go home," Henry said, with a catch in his voice. 

**IN A WAY, YOU STILL ARE. JUST... A MORE CENTRAL HOME.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GNU Terry Pratchett.


End file.
